Grimoire - Released

Originally Posted by Myrthos
Wow, and you know all that from 0.8 hours of gameplay. I can't wait to hear what you have to say when you played a whopping two hours.

With all that experience playing the game for 40 minutes, maybe he should write the review…

He's already at 0.9 hours now. The potential review is getting better by the day .

Anyway, I was a big fan of the Might & Magic games, but I could never really warm up to the Wizardries. I guess I would make another attempt at Wiz 6 or 7 before I try this. The few screenshots that I've seen look quite nice for an old-style blobber, and people who get over the interface and the bugs seem to enjoy it, so I guess it has its qualities. Who knows, maybe I'll take a look in a few years from now.

Time to buy this, I think

Originally Posted by luj1
That was fixed in minutes. Hard to believe Cleve had shown such diligent post-release support.

You would think that a perfectionist like Cleve wouldn't let such a microissue slip past him. After all, the game was ready and bug free in 2004. The game doesn't exist, what was released was a 'superdemo' repackaged. And it is just a prototype he stole when he was kicked out of Sir-tech

I read somewhere that you can't target individual enemies in combat. If that's the case, does it make the combat less tactical compared to similar games?

Not within a group. Like if you run into a group of Monster_A (3/3), you can only target the group of Monster_A, not an individual within the group. But if you run into multiple types of monsters/groups, let's say Monster_A (1/1) and Monster_B (2/2), you choose which to hit. I could be wrong, but my assumption is that when attacking a group, everyone hits the same one first, then when that when dies, moves onto the next one etc. If that's true, then tactics are unaffected.

Steamspy stats.

https://steamspy.com/app/650670

Originally Posted by Stingray
Not within a group. Like if you run into a group of Monster_A (3/3), you can only target the group of Monster_A, not an individual within the group. But if you run into multiple types of monsters/groups, let's say Monster_A (1/1) and Monster_B (2/2), you choose which to hit. I could be wrong, but my assumption is that when attacking a group, everyone hits the same one first, then when that when dies, moves onto the next one etc. If that's true, then tactics are unaffected.

That's assuring, thanks.

Originally Posted by Ripper
Steamspy stats.

https://steamspy.com/app/650670

I like the "Owners: 1,217 ± 1,685" bit.

So it's possible that -468 people own Grimoire!

Makes sense.

Between 1K and 3K sounds about right.

That's around twice what I would have expected it to sell at that price - at this stage.

The tricky part, if he wants to maximise profit, is when to put it on sale. Too soon, and it could burn him big time. Too late, and the momentum is lost.

I would pay ~10-15$ - personally. But I guess if ~2K are willing to pay 33$ - then I could be off by 5$ or so. 20$ could be the sweet spot, and I bet he would have exceeded 5K sales at this point - at that price.

How unfortunate that he didn't get off his ass so many years ago and finish it up. He could have made quite the name for himself. Well, in a popular way instead of what he's done to himself now.

But I'm one to talk. I've been making a somewhat similar game for around 10 years - and I've hardly begun yet.

To actually finish something on this scale, by yourself, is a major feat as far as I'm concerned.

Again, I hope he gets properly rewarded - and I hope it's as good as the fanatically biased fans are saying.

Heck, it doesn't have to be all that good - just a decent crawler.

I would actually like to buy it just to support him - but not at that crazily arrogant price. He needs to see reason first.

Originally Posted by NewDArt
The tricky part, if he wants to maximise profit, is when to put it on sale. Too soon, and it could burn him big time. Too late, and the momentum is lost.

Cleve says that after this release discount expires, Grimoire will "never be discounted or put on sale ever again". So, not an issue

Originally Posted by Stingray
Cleve says that after this release discount expires, Grimoire will "never be discounted or put on sale ever again". So, not an issue

We all know that what Cleve says is reliable

I hear the game scales to your level. Is this true?

Originally Posted by Ripper
I hear the game scales to your level. Is this true?

If Cleve is to be believed, not to the level, but to how you fare in fights. If you just demolish all opposition, you will get harder opponents in following fights, if you struggle, they will be easier. I think he billed this as some kind of reputation mechanics. If you get the rep of being a great fighter, harder enemies seek you out.

Hmm, sounds a bit like Oblivion, when you'd suddenly start seeing Daedric bandits…

Not really. In Oblivion, it's level-based. Also, Oblivion has a horrid level-scaling system that is completely absurd. Level scaling is not an issue per se, the question is how it's done. Bandits in Daedric armor are ridiculous, as it doesn't make any sense at all. If the group compoisition of opponent parties changes (like, instead of one advanced opponent plus 4 mooks you get 2 advanced opponents plus 3 mooks) according to how your reputation is, it's much more natural and keeps the challenge up.

But don't ask me for details how this is implemented here, as I never played the game and won't in the forseeable future. It's not level-scaling sensu stricto though, as Cleve claimed somehwere.

Still, if it's working off some metric of how well you're doing in combat, particularly in a stats based game, it's level-scaling in all but name.

Originally Posted by Ripper
Still, if it's working off some metric of how well you're doing in combat, particularly in a stats based game, it's level-scaling in all but name.

If it doesn't scale to your level, which it doesn't, it cannot be level-scaling.

Bad examples of level scaling only consider your level (like Oblivion) and not your abilities, and they scale everything (like Oblivion), which makes the game boring and predictable. Better examples will see that you at least sometimes have an interesting fight and are not only beaten all the time or have you run over everything because you are over-levelled.

Originally Posted by Turjan
If it doesn't scale to your level, which it doesn't, it cannot be level-scaling.

That's a semantic canard. It may not be scaling based on the single character stat "level", but if it's altering the challenge of the content based on some assessment of your combat strength, it's absolutely scaling to your level - it's just using a slightly different metric to determine the level of your relative power.